With the gaining popularity of digital video recorders, more users are watching only the programs and movies they record and are skipping over commercials within those programs and movies. Therefore these users often miss the advertisements for new programs. Without commercials, the users may have to rely more on recommendations from friends, family members, affinity groups and other sources (e.g., religious, school or hobby groups, or websites and publications of interest) to determine what programs to record.
Some digital video recording services provide recommendations to users by monitoring past viewing and recording selections of the users. However such services often have problems accurately predicting what media programs the users would want to watch in the future. One particular problem may be multiple users using the digital video recorder. For example, each family member may use the digital video recorder and one family member may prefer classic theatre programs, another family member may prefer science fiction, and yet another member may enjoy children entertainment. Facing the divergent preferences of the family members, the service may over compensate by providing too many recommendations or fail to make any recommendations because the service cannot identify any programming to satisfy the collective interest of the family members (e.g., no Shakespearian sci-fi cartoons).